Biography of Marc Schaeffer, Founder and Coordinator of RESPECT International

by Ian Foster

Born in New York City and raised in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, he graduated from the University of Manitoba with a Bachelor of Science degree, majoring in Mathematics and Physics.

The next two years were spent teaching English at public school level in Japan. On the way home from Japan he travelled to Israel overland and starting with the 'slow boat to China'.

During this five-month journey, Marc also rode the famed Trans-Siberian railroad and visited the city of Prague.

This was followed by studies leading to a Bachelor of Education, which led him back to the Land of the Rising Sun for a further eighteen months; this saw Marc teaching in Korea for six months, then returning to Japan for a further year and a half, before finally settling down in Winnipeg in May, 2000.

Marc entered into wedded bliss and began teaching Maths and Physics at the Aboriginal Community Campus, followed by a stint teaching Physics and Science at Springfield Collegiate Institute. Currently, he teaches Maths, Physics, Computers, and World Issues at Stevenson Britannia Adult Literacy Centre.

Marc was the founding and guiding force behind the 'Refugee Education Sponsorship Programme: Enhancing Communities Together' (known by the acronym of RESPECT), which began life roughly two years ago. Since then, RESPECT has introduced some 1600 refugee students to non-refugee students through pen-pal letter exchanges across some dozen countries.

Perhaps the most successful partnership between refugee and non-refugee children has involved Judy Huynh, at Palo Community School, and Samuel Boateng at Mohomou Refugee School in Guinea.

Bringing RESPECT into the view of the world has been chiefly through RESPECT E-zine. RESPECT thanks contributors, editors, and of course readers past and present for making this ezine possible.